Sorry, fitness peeps, I'm not buying your bulletproof promises. I want a fitness expert, strength coach, or anyone who knows, to define the word bulletproof for me. I know we can define what bulletproof means in regards to actual physical bullets fired from a gun, but I want to know what it means in regards to fitness, strength training, or health.

Go ahead, the comment field is below. I'll wait…

Wow, that was a long wait and I don't see any definitions forthcoming.

Do you realize that I can say anything about fitness or strength training as long as I use words like bulletproof? It's just one of the latest in a huge shit-pile of meaningless terms that have become in-vogue in the fitness industry.

You can have bulletproof abs, of course. You can have bulletproof coffee, probably the swill that got this ball rolling, although it was not the first use of the term.

As well, you can have a bulletproof attitude, bulletproof training program, and a pair of bulletproof knickerbockers. You can even have a bulletproof brain.

As for bulletproof coffee, I would bet you that many of the same fitness professionals who have talked about how stupid it is will have no problem jumping onto the bulletproof bandwagon for some other product.

Bulletproof is about as useful a word as excelled, extreme, or maverick. It may even be as worthless as epic. Would you rather have an epic training session, or a bulletproof mindset? You don't have to choose! You can have both.

I went ahead and performed a Google search on "bulletproof + fitness." Needless to say, I got plenty of results.

Bulletproof Fitness

Bulletproof Exec

Bulletproof Coffee

10 Strength Training Moves for a Bulletproof Body

Bulletproof Athlete by Mike Robertson

Bulletproof Diet

Apparently, more than one person thinks they have trademarked the term Bulletproof. When something is bulletproof, and we are not talking about bullets, about the best definition we could expect is "it needs no improvement." It does not need to be changed in any way. It is perfect!

You cannot achieve a perfect body, you cannot plan a perfect diet, you cannot have a perfect attitude or mindset. There is nothing you do which cannot be improved upon, and the mere suggestion that a fitness or health intervention is above reproach and is "all you'll ever need" is the opposite of good, since as fitness changes, needs change.

We do not even know what it means to have a perfect body since this entails a subjective hierarchy of priorities and a value-laden concept.

It is about as meaningful to assign the word bulletproof to a fitness or health product as it is to assign it to a smart phone, or, yes, a cup of coffee. But why should I be surprised? The fitness industry is nothing if not consistent. Don't buy into the bulletproof marketing efforts of a corrupt and greedy industry. If you do, you will be proving you are a bulletproof sucker.